Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid yesterday said it was still a big challenge to enhance the quality of education with limited resources in the country.
He came up with the view a day after the country saw a tremendous pass rate of 78.33% in Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) examinations.
Responding to some quarters’ question on the quality of education amid such results, he said: “It is not possible to increase the quality of education overnight as we have limitations, including efficient teachers.
“However, we have been working on increasing the quality of education. We have to continue it.”
Nahid added: “The number of enrollment [from class I to class IX] is now as many as 44.4 million, which was only 15 million a few years back.”
A total of 70,602 students have achieved GPA 5 in the HSC exams this year. Even after achieving such a score, many students have been found to be failing in university admission tests in the past few years.
About the failure of GPA 5 achievers in university admission tests, Nahid said the quality of a student could not be assessed in one hour’s test.
The existing admission test system has been followed just in the interest of coaching business worth Tk32,000 crore, he said, adding: “It is time to review the admission test system.”
Claiming that there is no shortage of seats in higher education institutions, he emphatically said it would not happen that students were failing to pursue higher education because of seat crisis.
The minister was talking to reporters after attending a seminar on Global Maritime Challenges and Role of Maritime Higher Education in Bangladesh at a city hotel.
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Maritime University authority organised the seminar.